Can Tech Help Reset Our Expectations?: Packback, Inquiry-Based Learning and the Power of AI

Kids walk into kindergarten with big dreams for themselves -- writing their names, making friends, and if they're lucky, maybe even learning about new species of dinosaurs. Though they may not express it this way, young children see school as the key to unlocking their potential, the first step to becoming an astronaut, a veterinarian, a firefighter or whatever they aspire to be when they grow up. Their families, too, have high hopes for what the next 13 years will bring, counting on educators to prepare their children for the future cognitively, socially and emotionally. But unfortunately in many classrooms across the U.S., these kids and their families discover that the education system's goals for them are much less ambitious than their own. Throughout elementary school, then into middle and high school, students are guided to academic milestones that are simply too low, targets that should be baselines rather than ceilings.